Tactical Diversion: The Mukasey Pick and the March to Iran

Written by Chris Floyd
Monday, 17 September 2007
The nomination of Judge Michael Mukasey as attorney general has drawn widespread support. Even among determined foes of the Bush Regime, the choice is seen as a good move; they say that while Mukasey is, to be sure, an arch-conservative, he is also dedicated to the notion of putting the law above political partisanship. Others have lauded what they see as a political defeat for Bush; having floated the idea of appointing raw partisan apparatchiks like Ted Olson or Michael Chertoff, Bush has been forced to seek a "consensus" candidate, not a political hatchetman.

I know nothing about Mukasey beyond what I've read about him in the newspaper stories and in pieces by bloggers with legal experience such as Glenn Greenwald and Scott Horton. Mukasey may well be a decent man who will restore sanity and the rule of law to the corrupt Justice Department of Bush factotum Alberto Gonzales, as many think. One can only hope so. But given the history of the Bush Administration, and its demonstrated, unbroken track record of using every appointment, policy and element of government to augment its authoritarian power and to push its radical agenda of corporate rapine and military aggression, one would also be either foolish or incorrigibly optimistic to assume that the nomination of the judge will result in some great change, especially as the Justic Department will still be riddled with partisan goons eager to pervert the law on behalf of the Leader and his party.

But whether the Mukasey nomination changes things or not, its real import seems clear: Bush has chosen a "consensus" candidate in order to clear away the imbroglio over the AG and the Justice Department before launching the certain military action against Iran. He doesn't need any new controversy to distract from the PR campaign he is now "rolling out" for the fall warmongering season. Nor do the Democrats want another controvery. As we have mentioned here so often before, they are completely on board with the idea of military action against Iran.

The Washington Establishment is set on a new war. Aside from the literally murderous imperial ambitions that are driving such a course, a new war with Iran will provide a distraction from the bipartisan failures in Iraq: the failure by Bush to fully secure the conquest (although he and the militarists and the war profiteers continue to thrive on the bloodshed); and the failure by the Democrats to do anything to stop the war. All of this will be pushed into the background when the Bush Regime launches its hundreds of sorties across the length and breadth of Iran, killing thousands, destroying vital infrastructure and plunging the world into more war-profitable upheaval.

The nomination of a "consensus" candidate for attorney general will not change any of this. And however decent and honorable Mukasey might have been throughout his long career, we cannot overlook this one, plain, overriding truth:

Anyone who publicly associates themselves with the Bush Administration today is entering into a knowing collaboration with evil -- with aggressive war, with mass murder, with unconstitutional tyranny, with rendition, Gitmo, torture, state terrorism, the whole horrible ball of wax.

Whatever Judge Mukasey has accomplished up to this point has been irrevocably

tainted, with blood, by his decision to serve such a regime.

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